Posted
by
timothyon Saturday May 05, 2012 @01:17AM
from the avoidance-vs-evasion dept.

daria42 writes "Looks like Apple isn't the only company with interesting offshore taxation practices. The financial statements for Google's Australian subsidiary show the company told the Australian Government it made just $200 million in revenue in 2011 in Australia, despite local industry estimating it actually brought in closer to $1 billion. The rest was funnelled through Google's Irish subsidiary and not disclosed in Australia. Consequently the company only disclosed taxation costs in Australia of $74,000. Not bad work if you can get it — which Google apparently can."

The problem is that corporations are allowed to give to politicians and that lobbying isn't required to be done via means that are available for viewing by the public. I wonder how much would change if the public had a right to go through the communications between lobbyists and politicians and see what deals were being made.

Google was one of the first companies to appear on Slashdot on these shady tax practices. I find it pretty funny that Slashdotters don't remember it and now there's been several stories about Apple and Microsoft doing it.

Google only pays a 2.4% tax rate using money-funneling techniques known as the 'Double Irish' and the 'Dutch Sandwich,' even though the US corporate income tax is 35%. By using Irish loopholes, money is transferred legally between subsidiaries and ends up in island sanctuaries that have no income tax, giving Google the lowest tax rate amongst its technology peers. Facebook is planning to use the same strategy.

Google makes their money with local ads. It's not unreasonable to expect that they pay local tax rates for local ads in Taiwan bought by local Taiwan businesses and served from local Taiwan servers. That is entirely different from making your software in Redmond, WA, licensing it through a Nevada puppet corporation and then laundering the money through the double-Dutch or Blind Irish mechanisms of financial wizardry to make the profit happen offshore when that same software is sold from Khazakstan to Bangalore, and all the points between.

You are seriously confused. The sums involved are far more than is required to buy a US Presidency, and all the key stakes in Congress. These are businesses, and they take the least cost course. Figure it out.

They'll either break Google (10% tax on gross income) or force Google to make massive political contributions (aka blackmail) like they did for Microsoft.

For crying out loud: Companies pay taxes on profits, not revenues. If you read the article, "the company made a loss on paper of $3.9 million in that period. Both Google’s revenues and losses were up over calendar year 2010."

If you a company makes a loss, it doesn't pay taxes. Why should it?

Now, whether the accounting practices that lead to this loss are kosher or not, I don't know.

And that's part of the problem. Since they only pay taxes on profits, they can easily set up a subsidiary in country X (Ireland in this case), where the tax rate is close to zero. Then they have the subsidiary bill the parent company a few billion dollars for nonexistent services. And look, the company is suddenly not making any profit.

Yes, exactly, we should all run our countries like Ireland. They have no corporate taxes so they must be a bastion of innovation with a booming economy and full employment.

Oh wait, they have a bunch of shell offices for major corporations which pay no corporate tax and hire one person, they're broke, and they're economy is fucked, let's not.

It's funny how the neo cons all forgot the Irish. A few years ago they were the country to be idolized if you were a conservative, low corporate taxes, close to zero regulation, everything they believe creates a wonderful economy. Then it all fell in a pile because their unregulated banks, with the help of unregulated US banks, fucked them, and the corporations they didn't tax paid no tax but didn't open up offices to generate other benefits. Now if you talk to a neo con Ireland is just like the other PIGS and must have been a dirty socialist pit with profligate spending habits.

If the US were capable of prosecuting large companies for financial fraud, there'd be a jail full of executives from every major financial firm. Instead, the worst of the criminals got multiple rounds of bail out money and other "stimulus" that lined their pockets. You can't expect legal action against large companies to happen as long as they're allowed to pay off our elected officials to look the other way.

Of course the accounting practices are shady; that is the point. The Double Irish/Dutch Sandwich [wikipedia.org] uses transfer pricing [wikipedia.org] to move profits to wherever they will be taxed the least. So companies like Google get to benefit from local services for their employees--everything from public roads to local education to physical protection via the US military--while avoiding the taxation that pays for such things. It's tax fraud; if you or I were to try it, without millions of dollars to pump into top-notch accountin

I would agree with you if google was actually paying local taxes, the whole point of the article is they DON'T, they funnel money through tax havens to avoid paying tax on locally earned money in countries such as Australia and the US. Str

They should have to use a proportional amount of infrastructure in the country where they claim they make their money. Particularly for multinationals, taxes should have less to do with how much they make and more to do on how much of the infrastructure they use in a country.

Actually, why not just eliminate corporate tax altogether, and just charge them to use any local infrastructure. Want employees? Back pay their education and health care. Want to move goods? You pay for the roadways you use. etc.

That's exactly why I said it's shady. Legally speaking they aren't doing anything wrong. Morally, and what people think about the practice, they sure as hell are. Especially when they jabber about the whole "Don't be evil" thing...

Just because they didn't break the law doesn't mean they didn't do wrong. There is a difference. For example all those Nigerian scams are actually legal because their law says you can cheat people who break laws. But would you really say that those Nigerian scams are objectively and morally right things to do? I don't think so. Likewise, Google has not done anything legally wrong. Their actions, however, are morally wrong.

And no, there is no easy solution to this. The ultimate reason why we need these are to allow companies in other countries to do business with companies in another. However, then we have jerks like Google who abuse this by setting up shell companies to take advantage of it and avoid taxes. Again, legally ok, but not morally.

Just because they didn't break the law doesn't mean they didn't do wrong. There is a difference. For example all those Nigerian scams are actually legal because their law says you can cheat people who break laws. But would you really say that those Nigerian scams are objectively and morally right things to do? I don't think so. Likewise, Google has not done anything legally wrong. Their actions, however, are morally wrong.

Erm, it may be legal to scam people in the US, but not in Australia. In Oz we call the Nigerian 419/Spanish Prisoner/advance fee scam "fraud" and if you are caught, you can be fined or imprisoned.

Yes I know about the difficulties of trying to extradite people (unless you guess a password to a US govt web site or are accused of downloading a film, but I digress) I'm just pointing out that the act is in fact, not legal.

Do you like war? Because that is where extra money is funnelled to by the government. Do you like more useless beureaucratic red tape? Because that is what the government does when it gets more money than it needs.

By "the government" I guess you mean U.S. government. But this story is about paying taxes to other countries. To every country Google does business in. These countries, by long history, do not spend billions in wars like the U.S. does. They are mostly peaceful and this is also why most of the world hates U.S.

In more civilized countries, the taxes go to infrastructure, healthcare and other things that benefit everyone.

No, the problem is that most people are ignorant. And there's no help for it. Most people are (less informed) than us and that's not going to change. Our world is ruled by people who don't even understand what's happening to them, or why. Once you understand that, your mission is clear.

But even then, how is $74,000 tax on $200 million justifiable. Even after all the funneling.

Good accountants. The tax rate in Oz on my current salary is around the 20% mark, I pay around 18% of my total income due to deductions, it means reducing my taxable income by about $2-4,000 per year, I still earned and spent the money, but it's not taxed because of what I spent it on (phone bills, internet bills, trade publication subscriptions(yes, I deduct/. subscriptions) and more) A good accountant pays for himself in a better tax return..

But 0.37% tax is taking the piss when the corporate rate should be around 30% ish (educated guess, anyone got the real number, please let us know). I'm guessing they use a crap load of R&D concessions (the 20% time would be tax deductible here I think)

Actually I'd say that here the problem is more to do with lawyers than politicians. Even if you had good politicians lawyers are getting so good at finding and exploiting loop holes that you would be in a constant cycle of patch followed by crack as lawyers attempt to "jailbreak" a company's profits into low tax countries.

Except that my taxes are funding illegal wars and the TSA instead that's being used to grope our children. By being forcibly taxed, I am an involuntary participant in all that. I have no right to opt out.

If some of these "civilization"-y-things like local Fire department were allowed to be created spontaneously, at least they would be accountable to me. At least I would have the right to opt out if they start to use my dues to fund a war.----As I understan

If some of these "civilization"-y-things like local Fire department were allowed to be created spontaneously, at least they would be accountable to me. At least I would have the right to opt out if they start to use my dues to fund a war.

Of course, you don't pay Federal taxes for the Fire Department. Fire Departments come under State and/or Local taxes (depending on where you are).

As I understand it, prior to a certain time, the US govt. did just fine with no taxes. It generated its revenue from import du

Wow, that's one way to ride your straw man [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man] down a slippery slope [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope]. Did I suggest anywhere 100% tax? Has there ever been a 100% tax?

As it happens, I am pretty familiar with the USSR economy. While the government did take a large chunk off one's wages, probably over 50% (maybe up to 70%, hard to give a specific number), the wages were way above "subsistence." People used their wages to buy expensive at that time electronics (TVs, video players), travel inside the country; frugal ones bought cars. For the 50-70% taxation, people were getting 100% free healthcare, 100% free kindergarten, high school, and college education and decent retirement benefits to name some.

About "taxing every worker to death, " that's just a lie. Minimum wage workers pay little to no taxes. Middle class pays more, but hardly over 30% even in extreme cases. Also, low wages people refuse to work for are not a result of taxation, but of employers intentionally pushing wages down because they can, due to high unemployment, offshoring, and cheap illegals.

And what the hell is this talk about “taxing to death" and "his dead body in the street"? It reminds me of ridiculous "death panels" by teabaggers. I have not seen unemployed dying on the streets yet. It seems that you are incapable of reasonable discussion about economy and taxes without resorting to threats of death and destruction to all who do not follow your anti-tax religion.

The total tax load on the lower income (minimum wage) is about 28%.The total tax load on the middle income is about 42%.The total tax load on the upper income is about 23%.The total tax load on the top.5% is about 19%.And the total tax load on the wealthiest (.1%) is about 17% and will be until taxes on dividends and income go up or we flat out tax wealth.

Homeless people are dead on average by 47.Homeless women are dead on average by 43.In first world countries.

They clean the bodies up quickly.

"Total tax load" is state and local taxes + excise taxes + property tax (which is in your rent too- just hidden). Really have to watch out for the republicans latest "pay no FEDERAL" taxes. Because it really ignores the total tax people pay by income.

And total taxes were above 90% on the wealthy in the 1950's.The peak was 92% on income over $400,000 per year in 1952.That was too far in one direction. But 17% is too far in the other direction.

The things Google and other companies are going makes me wonder why we allow them to stay in business. Just discorporate them or make their product illegal if they are not benefiting your society. It would be trivial for Australia to basically ban Google in Australia until they payed a fair tax on Australian income.

And total taxes were above 90% on the wealthy in the 1950's.
The peak was 92% on income over $400,000 per year in 1952.
That was too far in one direction. But 17% is too far in the other direction.

Just for accuracy's sake, the 90% and the 17% are different types of info. The 90% is a marginal rate (for the remaining income above $400,000). The 17% is an total aka average (for all income, including what was below $400,000). Using the CPI as one measure of inflation, $400,000 in 1950 is almost $4 million today. Finally, there were more tax loopholes and tax shelters back then (for individuals at least), so that folks who earned a lot could avoid paying massive taxes by setting up "Foundations" and

I am pretty familiar with the USSR economy. While the government did take a large chunk off one's wages, probably over 50% (maybe up to 70%, hard to give a specific number), the wages were way above "subsistence." People used their wages to buy expensive at that time electronics (TVs, video players), travel inside the country; frugal ones bought cars. For the 50-70% taxation, people were getting 100% free healthcare, 100% free kindergarten, high school, and college education and decent retirement benefits to name some.

- OK, I was born and lived in USSR, let's take this apart, piece by piece.

1. Taxes. Taxes in the former USSR were built into the paycheck, however that was just a show. Every person was working for the gov't, thus nobody had to file any tax returns, because that made no sense, why would you have to do that, legally you basically couldn't have any income other than what the gov't paid you.

Of-course you could in principle do something underground - even simplest of things, like make your own soap and sell it, grow some food and sell it, rent out a room in your apartment.

But, first of all, the apartments were given out by the State, not acquired in any free market, there was a huge shortage of housing, multiple generations of people lived in one apartment, old, pre-war apartments were shared by multiple families, a family of 3, 4 people could live in one room, sharing a kitchen and a bathroom and the hall with a few more families.

People waited for new housing their entire lives. Obviously situations were different, the more enterprising people were in the Communist Party, running the place, so they certainly had ability to get paid much more, specifically they could steal things and get bribes from all over the place, and they did. They got apartments, housing without long line ups, they even got more than that - 'dacha', which is a country house, where one would go on a weekend or for holidays.

But the point is there was huge shortage of living accommodations, my parents waited for 17 years for an apartment in Ukraine. 17 freaking years in a line up.

2. Cars.Well, if you can call those ridiculous metal boxes cars, but even those couldn't be acquired by anybody living on a 'normal engineer salary' of 120 rubles. A car would cost 5-7000, depends on a car, depends on time it would differ, but basically it would take one person about 10 years of unspent salary to buy a car, in reality nobody could buy a car for that money.

Cars were bought on the black market, for twice, tree times their nominal prices, people bought (or stole) parts over long period of time and put together the cars themselves.

You see, when everybody gets the same salary (about 60 rubles for a cleaner, to the average and most common salary of 120 rubles paid to engineers, doctors, teachers, I am talking post-Krustchev, before Brezhnev, when normal salaries were about 3000 'old' rubles for a factory worker), an experienced factory worker could be making 200-350 rubles, a high ranking manager would be around 200-500.

A politician, a party member wasn't working for money. REAL USSR economy was not built with money, it was built with connections, with personal relationships. That's what happens when money is fake, and money was fake, trillions of rubles were printed and put into circulation year after year.

Farmers could have some extra money, because they would grow their own crops and sell them at markets, the cops would take bribes, protection racket, not to throw a book at those semi-legal activities.

People stole from everywhere they could, from factory floors, to collective farms, to construction. The army was a pretty good place to steal from, or maybe just use the conscripts for personal purposes - built a bigger 'dacha' (country house) for the generals or politicians or managers, what else is new.

Taxes in USSR were completely irrelevant, because money was fake and people were quite poor.

Free healthcare was available. However it never guaranteed a successful treatment. Only several hospitals in the country (those that serviced party bosses) were decently equipped with Western tools. The rest was dismal. Can you imagine going to the dentist and having your teeth drilled without local anesthetic and with a drill that did at best 1,000-1,500 rpm? With the power being delivered to the drill bit via a set of rollers and belts? You never saw such a torture tool in your life. But every dental place in USSR had them - and only them. Same applies, of course, to every other medical aspect. As people joked, "the healthcare is free only if you don't care about the results."

A kindergarten was free, maybe. However have you seen them? They were not exactly attractive or educational places. They were practical, though, because the State required every man and every woman to work, and not to sit at home tending to their children.

A common worker was not very likely to even live long enough to see the pensions. But those who did were not living like kings. The pension was only barely sufficient to keep them alive on the most basic food. In latest years of USSR the pension was enough to go to the grocery store... once.

Free education was probably the smartest thing USSR ever did. Mind you, it was not free to everyone. You had to take exams and to prove that you are smart enough to be admitted. Admissions were not infinite either. If you are in then you will be even paid a little stipend if you are doing good. The country needed engineers and scientists and doctors.

USSR fell because it was destined to fall, and now we know exactly why this is so. Most importantly, USSR never had any objective reasons to be stable. Most of the miracles were achieved on the wave of popular enthusiasm - after the Civil War, then during and after the World War II. The Baikal-Amur railway was the last example of that enthusiasm. That could not last; and once it was gone the society fell into the groove of passivity, indifference, cynicism and decay. This is not that dissimilar from the trends in the modern US society; however in USSR it was illegal to not work if you are able-bodied. In the USA it is just fine.

"Does this mean that 100% taxation, like in old USSR, would be the ultimate civilization?"Of course not. It's almost lie you are setting up a strawman.

" USSR confiscated all the labor of workers, and instead paid them subsistence money that had no relation to the contribution of each specific worker."Oh, you were. Shame on you. The soviet system was completely different.

"The USA is doing its best to repeat this experiment by taxing every worker to death,"he says..among lowering taxes. Tax to death is ludic

The tax rate for a common man was never higher than 25% [wikipedia.org]. To get taxed above 80% you had to be a billionaire or something.

But don't forget that not only IRS wants to suck your blood. There are state taxes and city taxes and property taxes, not counting sales/use taxes and other fees. When it's all said and done you are losing 1/3 to 1/2 of your income to bureaucrats - who then cheerfully proceed to waste it.

Total federal budget = 4 trillion, or 4 tr / 300 mil = 13k per american. If you bring 80% of 10 people making average half a billion dollars that makes it... a rounding error.

I know this is not going to be popular here, but really, from a financial point of view : any group smaller than tenthousand members (which would already make will pay for government. Why ? Because nobody else can. The only alternative is no government. And any attention paid to denying that fact i

There is extremely little waste in the US government. fell free to go to the library and look at the accounting numbers. It's public inforamtion. INformation I used to get paid to sift through, and write code to sift through.

Talking about Taxes is stupid, and it distract from the real conversation. The republican have done a good job seperating taxes out of any value to the conversation.

Don't talk about taxes. Talk about services. In Oregon, I lot of people value parks, and forests. SO they have services to maintain and protect them. That costs money. It comes from taxes.

The misinformation and distraction campaign is why we now have people who want taxes cut, and services improved. The same people who get pissed off with police cuts back, the schools systems have layoffs are the same ones that refuse to vote for a tax or bond measure.

We want to pay less, and you gibe us more. As if the money for services comes from a different bucket.

It is very difficult to debate this statement, largely because the statement itself defies belief. For example, are you saying that the whole TSA infrastructure, with their airport gropers and the VIPERs on buses, who steals travelers' belongings and can't see a gun on a passenger, is just fine and we should keep financing it?

Different definitions of waste. You are saying they shouldn't be spending that money, and are therefore wasting it. What the GP is saying is that for what they decide to pay for, they get their money's worth. And I think that is mostly true.

A health middle class has the most money overall, and there is more people. so a lower tax works because there is more money. When the middle class weakens, then you need to tax where the money is. i.e. the rich. remove the bush tax cuts. remove tax deductions. create a tobbins tax, loser corporate tax to 20%, only allow writ offs on In country RnD. Tax money moved out of the country at 50%

You know, I'm a bit of a Google Fanboy. If there's a company I tend to forgive, it's Google, but let's dispel a few myths.

Taxes don't suck. In the US, you let people die in the streets if they don't have a healthcare card. in Australia, we don't. Taxes go to public hospitals, maintaining roads and other social infrastructure and services.

By Google not paying its fair share, like everyone else, they really are being dishonest - and I disrespect Google for that.

You need medical care and don't get that "required to treat people" paper work in for "free" care - you will be in the streets after the bills arrive. If you don't get your meds, your meds in the right amounts or have your meds reviewed - palliative care becomes your "required to treat people".

False, Hospitals are not require to treat people. This is a liw spread by people who would rather watch children rot in the street then have health care proposed by a black democrat.

Hospitals are requires to stabilize you. Then you are back on the street. Infection? too bad. Side of you face swollen and on the very edge of leaking puss into your brain? come back when it's actually an emergency.And if the number get much higher, then hospital physically won't be ably to treat you.

This is just part of the campaign to tar Google with any brush they can. Read this.

You are silly.

This has nothing to do with Google, but with the fact that corporation are somehow allowed to pay incredibly small taxes, while you as a hardworking and honest person have absolutely no way to achieve similar tax rate.

A successful, well-run company can easily have a profit of $1 on revenues of billions and therefore pay only 25 cents tax.

If a company is making millions and billions in revenue it usually indicates that they are ( 1 ) not paying realistic dividends to holders of preference chares and ( 2 ) they are not investing internally in R&D. Both those are booked against the profit & loss account.

What kind of fool of a company would Google be if it DIDN'T exploit every tool the government gives it to minimize it's tax burden? Furthermore, how irresponsible to it's share holders if it didn't utilize the law to achieve the highest rate of return.

Google is not the villain here. No company is, when it's simply exercising the controls given to it by the government under which it operates.

What kind of fool of a company would Google be if it DIDN'T exploit every tool the government gives it to minimize it's tax burden?

These tools are not given to Google by governments. These tools require a multinational corporation that hides taxes by using incompatible laws of multiple countries.

MS does the same by playing on differences in tax laws of individual states (IIRC, all sales of all DVDs are done through a one-lawyer office in Nevada [microsofttaxdodge.com], and Redmond offices work at loss - hardly a surprise if t

Not the villain. They are using what tools are available to save as much money as they can. To put it another way, is someone a villain if they use coupons when they go shopping? If they go shopping during a sale?

Obviously not. If the laws are in place to allow this behavior, then it follows that this is what the governments want.

Let me re-phrase on your behalf:
"What kind of company wouldn't exploit every loophole or legal avenue available to pay the absolute minimum amount of taxes in the country they do business in and reap the benefits of? Hey, provided it's not actually illegal, who cares if it's wholly unethical?"

At some level, it's a frankly depressing picture of humanity that we can so easily rationalise away doing pretty much anything in the name of material pursuit, so long as it doesn't outright violate national laws. What's worse, is that I hate the fact that governments are seemingly enacting ever more legislation, ever more restricting our rights, and yet, it seems that when it comes to things like tax law, the reason is because if they don't, people will abuse it unless it is absolutely watertight. Hell, people admit they are looking for and exploiting the system as if it's a badge of honour, as if they'd be somehow morally liable if they didn't abuse the system.

You conveniently seem to have forgotten that corporations using some of the money they save by minimizing their tax burdens to lobby the government to pass legislation that continues to facilitate their avoidance of taxation. This is a worldwide practice, but in the US in particular, this is clearly a case of disproportionate representation--for the amount of tax these companies pay, they get enormous power to influence policy.

Looking at the bigger picture, it's also evident that different nations do not a

If this was evil, then sure. Of course it's not, and Google is pretty damn good player. So good in fact people who are desperate to call it evil have to make up the thinnest excuses. If they didn't, they might have t think about their world view, and basing you 'opinion' and bases gut feelings requires less energy that, say, thinking.

Funny Orwellian double-gobbledygook, saying that not paying taxes is evil.

TAXES ARE EVIL.

Taxes are theft, forced labour, slavery.

Avoiding taxes is a virtue, a moral obligation, goodness itself. We should all avoid as much as possible to ensure that the gov't has as little as possible, they are already stealing everything under the Sun just through inflation, it's gov't that is evil.

It goes by many names. Tax avoision, tax optimisation, tax efficiency. Google does it, Microsoft does it, Apple does it... even the optician I use has a token headquarters in the tax haven of Gurnsey. Every major company engages in the practice, and they'd be stupid not to. Making a profit is the reason for their existance.

Maybe we should all say that copyright laws only apply if you pay taxes in that country? That will make them think twice about going to tax havens with no legal system that will endorse their claims of piracy, trademark or copyright violation.

I think people here don't seem to understand the Australian tax system.It is entirely designed to take money from productive individuals and hand it over to corporates, while cutting in the politicians who facilitate this. Then the government proceeds to hand over a few crumbs to the unwashed masses (a.k.a. taxpayers) from the sell-off of natural resources, while avoiding at all cost to invest anything in infrastructure.In such context, Google's contribution of $74,000 (which is less than half of the income taxes I pay as an individual Australian resident per year at the marginal rate of 48% for my income from hard work and lots of overtime) can be seen as a generous token, because most corporations seem to pay bugger all and just pocket obscene subsidies instead.

I think people here don't seem to understand the Australian tax system.

As an accountant, it's clear to me that people generally, but especially technology websites, do not understand any tax system. In the case of the latter I'm fairly sure it's wilful ignorance since there's a habit of neatly avoiding very obvious things that require mere common-sense to trigger realisation that they're spouting bullshit.

It's equivalent to those media articles on hacking, with the picture of some hooded terrorist stealingz your megahurtz. There is activity to be concerned about, but anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge -- or simply combining common-sense and critical thought -- can just glance at it and find themselves shaking their head as they hold it in their hands, unable and frankly unwilling to decide on which is worse: that the media is so intentionally misleading or genuinely so incompetent.

In Australia; business taxes can be reclaimed against shareholders tax through a system called Franking Credits; there's a similar (but different) system setup for foreign investors - although a company can only pick one scheme or the other. Regardless, it's a bit of a moot point.

It's also a tax on their investors. Except in an ideal world of perfect competition, the savings from reduced taxes wouldn't be completely passed on to customers; at least some of it would be retained to increase profit margins.

Besides, it only seems fair for the people who benefit from a company's products to contribute to paying its taxes.

Businesses don't pay taxes, their customers do. I cheer whenever I hear about someone dodging taxes, although I'd cheer more if the size of your accounting team didn't determine your tax bill.

Why don't people ask for laws simple enough to just -know-?

Only in perfect markets, where you don't have superprofits. In many markets, prices are (partially or fully) set to what the customer is willing to pay rather than the cost of providing the services. Google would be an example here... In this case, taxes would be from the businesses.

Okay, give one example of a nation where these things all exist without taxpayer funding. In the UK, these are all government funded precisely because for hundreds of years the private sector failed at providing them - at best it provided them for a select few.

We had a few thousand years of trying to provide these things without government intervention so if, as you say, it is 'patently false' that these things will not be provided without taxpayer funding, I'm sure it will be trivial for you to provide

Actually, the whole Apple/Microsoft thing looks like deflecting attention away from Google's practices. Their tax dodging has been discussed since 2010 [slashdot.org]. Maybe it's even Google themselves who started this bullshit spreading about other companies cos they got too much heat for it and wanted to be all "don't blame us! look these guys do it too! that makes it ok!"

The world has a total GDP on currency converted basis of about 70 trillion dollars, australia has a GDP of about 1.4 trillion. 1/40th of 70 trillion dollars would be 1.7 trillion. And not all of the people in the world even have internet access to matter to google.

(source: wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) which gives couple of different estimates that are all pretty close given our margin of error here).

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Google's revenue per Australian is higher than Google's revenue per human? Seven and a half times higher. Why is that surprising at all? The US is about 1/20th the world's population and almost 1/2 of Google's revenue source. There are places where very few people have never used the Internet. There are other places where people make less money, so fewer advertising dollars are pointed at them, even if they have equal Internet access.

Nobody said there was something illegal going on. It is a legal practice. However, it is really shady practice that Google is purposely doing. They know it, we know it, everyone knows it. Legally speaking they can continue doing it if they so choose. However, it is still morally wrong.

Yeah, people and companies should be able to choose: Pay taxes and enjoy public services like schools, police, health services etc., or pay no taxes and buy all of those things from the private sector themselves.